ABSTRACT
Cornwall is often represented as marginal geographically, politically, and economically: located on the extreme South-West of Britain, it is also the second poorest region of Western Europe. Cornwall also occupies a unique liminal position within Britain, in being both English county and Celtic ‘nation,’ while also arguably not fully belonging to either category. This chapter examines how the identity position of Cornish-as-Celtic is taken up by participants at Lowender Peran, a music and dance festival celebrating Cornwall’s Celtic roots. It looks at how such identities are rendered as ‘authentic’ drawing on narratives from Cornish history and understandings of past and present solidarity between Celtic nations in doing so. It also examines how such identities are negotiated when contested. Tensions between personally relevant and collectively recognised expressions of Cornish identity are explored as well as the festival as ‘liminal space.’
